Wave of Suicide Attempts on USS Lincoln Expose Horror of Trump’s War

Eight sailors tried to kill themselves on the USS Lincoln strike group—one of the longest-deployed aircraft carriers in military history.

According to a letter from acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao, first reported by CNN, two sailors tried to jump overboard, one in March and another in August. Both were saved. It’s unclear how the other six attempts were carried out. Retired Rear Admiral Donald J. Guter told The New York Times that the attempts were a “disturbingly high number indicating a serious stress level.” Both President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have ignored and dismissed reports of troops’ mental health issues, low food rations, and deteriorating conditions aboard the ship.

Many of the 5,000 sailors, who ended their over 300-day deployment earlier this month, reported it was one of the worst experiences of their lives—eight suicide attempts would certainly support that. This war is so pointless, so wasteful, and so unpopular that those who are supposed to be fighting it would rather leap into the waters of the Persian Gulf than stay on the Lincoln for another day.

“That this administration can find endless taxpayer dollars for bombs, ballrooms and billionaires, but cannot take care of our service members, is completely unacceptable,” said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

Donald Trump has claimed that it’s completely unbelievable that he would put his name on a theater commemorating an assassinated president. But he wasn’t talking about the Kennedy Center.

MS NOW reported Wednesday that top Trump officials were already mulling over the next American landmark to be consumed by Trump’s eponymous brand. One potential option, according to an administration official who spoke with the network, was Ford’s Theatre—where President Abraham Lincoln was killed in 1865. The suggestion reportedly sparked a tense discussion last week among people overseeing the storied playhouse.

The president wrote about the matter hours later on Truth Social, chalking the story up to “FAKE NEWS!”

“The story that the White House, or me, want to affix my name to Ford’s Theatre, in Washington, D.C., where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, is a ridiculous lie,” Trump wrote on social media Wednesday evening.

But his aversion to the idea was apparently not due to any sort of historical reverence.

“Who would possibly want a name on such a tragic place?” Trump wrote.

“The Dumocrats suffer from serious Trump Derangement Syndrome,” he continued. “They are Degenerates and Losers who make up lie after lie, and this Ford’s Theatre Hoax is just another one of their never-ending, malicious falsehoods to try to discredit and demean.”

The president reiterated his comments Thursday morning, further claiming that the national media and the Democratic Party “conspire together to make up false stories” about him. “Shouldn’t be allowed to happen,” Trump wrote.

But Trump’s projected outrage stands in stark contrast to his machinations at the Kennedy Center, where he has worked tirelessly to plaster his name on the living memorial. Part of that effort included replacing the center’s board with a spate of Trumpian loyalists (and appointing himself as its chairman), and leveraging that power to find avenues to affix his name and brand on the performing arts space or its grounds. He has been profoundly unsuccessful in doing so, however—Trump has faced numerous legal obstacles in his quest to rename the Kennedy Center, in no small part because the site itself is under the jurisdiction of Congress.

Ford’s Theatre, however, is not.

President Donald Trump posted an apparently AI-generated image of himself with Chinese President Xi Jinping Thursday where everyone else appears to have been removed—except, perhaps, for Natalie Harp.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump shared an image of him stoically saluting, standing beside a freshly arrived Xi on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews. A military jet flies overhead.

But when compared to actual video footage of the event, there are some strange differences.

In one video, Trump and Xi appeared to be accompanied by first lady Melania Trump and Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan. In the photo, however, the men appear to be standing alone, with the women either completely obscured or removed entirely.

Despite the omission of the two first ladies, the image Trump posted included another woman: Monica Crowley, the U.S. chief of protocol, who shard multiple images of herself at the event.

There was widespread speculation that Crowley was actually Trump’s ever-present assistant Natalie Harp lurking in the background with her hand over her heart. It’s not clear whether Harp was in attendance at Xi’s arrival.

There are other notable details about the heavily edited image. In reality, Trump did not remain steely throughout the military flyover, but winced in pain at the loud noise from the B-1 heavy bomber overhead.

Trump also wore a winter coat and black gloves to receive Xi, despite the rather temperate weather in Washington, D.C. In the image, however, Trump appears to be wearing only one glove. Behind him, the military display appears to have been morphed into a row of strange, alien-like figures.

This story has been updated.

One of the stories the White House cited to justify its ban on Politico, MS NOW, and CNN had Vice President JD Vance as its main source.

The Washington Post reports that during a press call in June, the Trump administration invited news outlets to a briefing where a White House aide told participants, “The contents of this call are on background, attributable to a senior administration official. By remaining on the line, you agree to those terms. There is no embargo for the contents of the call.”

That senior administration official was none other than Vance, who told the media outlets on the call that a peace agreement with Iran was “80, 85 percent” done. Politico published an article with the quote attributed to a senior administration official—only for the White House to later claim in court, “Publication of sensitive security information, and misinformation about national security information, diverts White House resources and those of the national security team in particular.”

“The spread of misinformation, especially relating to national security, is a threat that undermines the President’s ability to safeguard the national security,” the White House wrote in a letter submitted to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

Status News reports that multiple news agencies were on that call and they all granted Vance anonymity in exchange for the information. Vance said on Monday that he supported banning Politico and other outlets, calling President Trump’s decision “totally appropriate.”

“If you actually look at the objective analysis, Politico is as anti-Trump as Breitbart was anti-Obama or anti-Biden,” Vance said. “They can still report on the Trump White House. They can still get the public reports. They can still, of course, talk to people in the administration and outside the administration.”

But the administration’s complaint about anonymously sourced news reports compromising national security rings hollow with this revelation. It’s overwhelmingly likely that Vance isn’t the only “senior administration official” who has delivered information to the press in this way. A judge lifted the ban late Wednesday night, but the White House still barred CNN, MS NOW, and Politico reporters from White House grounds Thursday morning. That, plus the news about Vance, is likely to further undermine the administration’s legal defense for its attack on the free press.

The White House on Thursday continued denying CNN, MS NOW, and Politico access to the White House, even after Trump-appointed District Court Judge Timothy Kelly struck down the president’s sweeping ban late Wednesday night. All three outlets said they had reporters who were denied entry to the White House premises, and no reason was given for the refusal.

Kelly’s temporary restraining order gives access back to Politico, MS NOW, and CNN after they filed a lawsuit on Monday against the Trump administration. While the administration’s lawyers tried to justify the ban on national security grounds, Kelly wasn’t buying it.

“The Court is skeptical—at least on this record—that Defendants’ interest in safeguarding national security is the actual motivation for, or is even advanced by, the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes.… Nothing in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns,” he wrote in his decision. “Certainly, that is not what President Trump said when he announced that he was ‘banning’ Plaintiffs from the White House—instead, he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of Plaintiffs’ reporting.”

Trump apparently saw this decision coming, opining about Kelly’s commitment to judicial ethics on Truth Social and promising to appeal the decision the day the lawsuit was filed.

“As expected, Fake News CNN, Politico … and MSNOW (formerly known as MSDNC!), have brought suit to gain access to the White House, and your President, ME! They have drawn a great Judge, for them.… The Judge’s name is Tim Kelly, and he was, sadly, appointed by ‘TRUMP,’” the president wrote. “In other words, almost without question and, as usual, we’ll go for appeal because Fake News people and publications that only write negatively, and who violate our National Security by writing false and defamatory stories with unknown ‘sources,’ shouldn’t be allowed access to the most important Office anywhere in the World.”

This story has been updated.